Currently there are around 1,700 machine readable resources on data.gov.au.

But what does that mean?

Well if you were so inclined you could write some code, point it at an API enabled dataset and thus create a visualisation without having to download the data. Then, when the data is updated, new information will be instantly reflected in your visualisation. There are applications that already use data.gov.au APIs including the National Map.

You can spot machine readable resources by looking for the green Data API button. Clicking the button provides a popup with options for using the data.

But what does it do?

It’s probably easier to show you what it does. We’ll use the twitter stats dataset because it’s easy to follow. The data from the most recent resource can be accessed by using;

That may not look all that enticing (it’s JSON), but your computer could eat it up. For example it could take that data stream and, from it, identify the 10 most frequent Tweeters for the month of July.

We could even take that code, put it on a webpage, and then every time the page was visited the chart would display the most prolific APS Tweeters – really, the sky is the limit.

The cool thing about Data APIs is that they are constrained only by what data is available, and your imagination. Check out what others have cooked up using open data at the latest GovHack competition.

And the value?

The automated process of creating data API’s allows government entities to avoid the costs associated with setting up their own data serving (or, sharing) infrastructure. The data from these APIs can be used to create visualisations like the interactive Australian budget or applications to inform about energy ratings.